In the News
In November, the American people will elect not just a President who signs and vetoes legislation, but the Commander in Chief of our Armed Forces. This distinction is critical because the checks and balances in the Constitution largely go away when the President acts as a military commander. That was an acceptable trade-off when weapons of war were muskets and cannons. Today, the President is vested with the unparalleled responsibility to order a nuclear strike without approval from Congress or the courts.
PHILADELPHIA — Stephanie Murphy's family escaped Vietnam on a boat, eventually making it to the United States with aid from an American Navy ship.
Now, the 37-year-old businesswoman and defense expert is running for a House seat in Florida as a Democrat. Murphy said she would be proud to become the first Vietnamese-American woman in Congress, but even prouder that her election would mark another step toward lawmakers reflecting the diversity of the U.S. population.
U.S. Congressman Walter Jones, North Carolina’s 3rd District representative, has crossed the aisle to file a complaint before the Federal Election Commission seeking to end super PAC – political action committee – spending in US elections. The complaint seeks to reverse a federal appeals court ruling which created super PACs and has resulted in an explosion of spending in elections across the country. Listed on the complaint with Jones, a Republican, are California’s 33rd District Congressman Ted Lieu and Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon, both Democrats.
A U.S. lawmaker is renewing his push for Congress to toughen requirements on medical-device warnings, calling Olympus Corp.’s 2013 decision against issuing a broad alert to U.S. hospitals about scope-related superbug outbreaks “despicable.”
Auto-ISAC, the automotive industry’s threat information sharing group industry, released its best practices for cybersecurity in automobiles.
The guidelines address a number of security issues that have frequently been brought up by researchers, including vulnerability disclosure and supply chain management.
Automotive security became a legislative focus last year, when a video demonstrating researchers Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek remotely hacking Jeep Cherokee as driven went viral.
A leading South Bay lawmaker and critic of safety at the former ExxonMobil refinery in Torrance has renewed his criticism of a regulatory study aimed at discovering whether a commercially viable alternative to the use of highly toxic hydrofluoric acid exists.
In his second letter in the past three months to the South Coast Air Quality Management District, which is conducting the study, Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Manhattan Beach, accused the agency of failing to look at whether the use of the potentially deadly acid with a 10 percent additive is safe.
The Federal Health and Human Services Department (HHS) issued guidelines this week that could require hospitals and doctor offices to notify HHS if they are victimized by a ransomware attack.
The HHS guidance has several stipulations for if and when health providers would be required to make a notification. The primary trigger would be if the electronic protected health information (ePHI) is not protected in accordance with HHS regulations or if the ePHI is properly encrypted making it impervious to a criminal enterprise.
In April, we reported that the board of the 62,000-member American Geophysical Union (AGU) had decided to “Sell Its Scientific Integrity For $35,000 In ExxonMobil Money.” But as evidence continues to spill showing that the oil giant is still funding climate science denial nearly a decade after it said it would stop, the board of this leading group of climate scientists will apparently take another look in September at the decision to take Exxon money.
WASHINGTON ― Before national attention turns to the political party conventions, a group of Senate Democrats took to the floor this week to confront the “many-headed dragon” of climate change denial.
The effort, which began Monday, is meant to call out more than 30 different organizations that are “either co-opted or created by the fossil fuel industry in order to propagate climate [change] denial while obscuring the true hand of the fossil fuel industry in their efforts,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), who is leading the effort, told The Huffington Post.
A 22-year-old New York man whose “swatting” calls to police victimized at least 20 celebrities and elected officials, including South Bay Rep. Ted Lieu, has received a two-year federal prison term, authorities said.
Mir Islam, who pleaded guilty in July to three federal charges relating to swatting and doxing that occurred over a seven-month period in 2013, was sentenced Monday to 24 months in prison.